As a band, we have covered more than 1000 events at some of the best wedding venues in the U.K and we have also seen the most meticulously planned weddings and the low key, low budget weddings. What we share with you in this post is a handful of things to remember for your wedding which make a lot of difference on the day.
During the summer, we cover many weddings and some of them are in the most remote places, like way out in the countryside in the middle of a field in a gigantic marquee. In recent years, the summers have been getting hotter and hotter and the last thing which you’d expect is that the wedding planners would forget to ensure that there is more than enough ICE, but to our surprise, this is the one thing that many of our clients have overlooked. However much ice you thought was needed, on a hot day you will need twice as much, no kidding.
The other shocking thing which we see far too often is a total lack of communication between the service team and the wedding party. Just imagine, you have planned your big wedding, 150 guests expected to arrive at the venue to have the most amazing drinks reception with sparkling wine, live music and canapes, etc. For some reason, your photographer decided that they wanted to take extra photos at the church and this meant that the wedding party was delayed by 50 minutes. Far too often, they arrive at the reception and their sparkling wine has been poured at least an hour ago in anticipation of the original deadline. Your guest are greeted with warm drinks with absolutely no sparkle and as you look around, you can see that most people have had a sip and just left the rest. When you go to a restaurant, quite often they would place the champagne in a cooler with lots of ice so that you enjoy it at its best; this can easily be timed to perfection on the day so that most guests enjoy a chilled drink, even if the rest have to wait in a queue, at least it will be chilled.
So that’s 2 things to remember, now for number 3. You’d never believe this, but your photographers can be the most annoying and disruptive people at the wedding. Some photographers just keep interrupting the flow of an enjoyable reception, because they want to take more pictures. The solution is to agree in advance how the photos will be taken and take more natural spontaneous photos rather than staged photos.
The photos are an easy fix, but this next point is more sensitive and there are different views on it. Basically, some of your guest will bring the most disruptive children to your wedding and let them loose. They will run around like crazy and ruin your celebrations. Some people ban any children from their wedding, others lay on bouncy castles and other fun things for the children. One wedding we went to last year, they thought that hula hoops would be a great idea; it wasn’t. One kid started spinning the hoop and whacked a little girl right in the face and she started crying. The other consideration with allowing children, is that they arrive in buggies. We have been at weddings where there were many buggies and the parents can’t detach themselves from them and guess what? They wheel them into your wedding photos.
The last point only happens at greedy venues. The wedding industry is massive and business is business, but this is your special day and one which you will remember for a long time. What ever you do, try to avoid venues which host multiple weddings at the same time and those that are also open to the public. Imagine that your guest arrive and they end up in the wrong wedding and even paid for drinks when you had everything laid out for them to enjoy. Imagine, you arrive at your venue and it is also open to the public and they are enjoying your paid entertainment for free and making noise in the background and even taking photos to post on social media. Some people are fine with this, but others avoid it by having the wedding in the middle of a field in some remote part of the country.
On our website there is a list of over 60 venues where we have performed many times, if you need an opinion about any of the venues, feel free to mention it with your inquiry or leave a comment in the space below.
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